The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by alkali:

mayakda writes:

Every company I've worked (which is not that many), HR tells us that one's salary is confidential and should not be discussed with one's co-workers. That's always struck me as something that ought to be illegal; shouldn't employees have a right to discuss their compensation with whomever they want?

In fact, they do have that right, at least in the U.S. An employer who promulgates a policy to the contrary may be in violation of section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act. See, for example, this NLRB decision. (Tip of the hat to Sam Heldman, who wrote a paper that clued me in about this.)

Patrick (and others):

I am genuinely sorry to have caused offense. I appreciate that no one likes a language cop, but I just found that word jarring in this particular context. Berube is best known outside the blogosphere for a book about his son with Down's, and I assumed that Patrick did not know that (or that it had slipped his mind). I had hoped that because I saw the post relatively soon after it appeared, my comment might have nudged along a small edit. The tone I was going for was "Hey, pal, X.Y.Z.," and not, "I should have you know, sir, ..." Clearly, I misfired wildly.

One would think that after 10 years of e-mail, Usenet, listservs and blog-commenting, I would be more adept at turning tone-of-voice signals into typescript, but in that regard (and in so many other areas of endeavor) I continue to surprise myself with my own inadequacy. I did not mean to call into question Patrick's goodwill, which I do not doubt, and I apologize for that implication.

Ms. Mixon: I agree that such comments are more appropriately made in private. I confess that it did not even occur to me to send an e-mail, because I so infrequently look at my own spam-clogged mailbox these days. I had sort of hoped that if there had been an edit that my comment would have been deleted. In hindsight, I'm not sure what the best course of action would be, other than to obey my grandmother's admonition, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and be proved one."

Again, my apologies.

... “Hey, this is retarded” ...

Given that Berube has a son with Down's, that's probably not what he was thinking.

This just in: interminable debate about definition of SF, fantasy and other genres to be settled by soon-to-be-issued federal regulations. Imminent death of Usenet predicted.

Put me on record 97 if I have anything to say about it, the right to keep and bear gnus shall not be infringed.

For those considering bearing gnus:

Birthweight of Brindled Gnu: 22 kg (48 lbs.)

There's definitely a screenplay in this one.

Yes, albeit probably not a good one.

John Farrell writes:

[[[Now, I don't mind saying, contra Erik, that as a right leaner, I have heard liberals make death threats to conservatives:

"We should go to Washington and stone Henry Hyde to death," Baldwin was quoted as saying to a cheering crowd. "And then we should go to his house and kill his family."]]]

If you saw that show, you know you have falsely described what actually occurred. If you didn't, well, you know now.

"Well, I guess the mark of a classic is that you can reread it a thousand times and always find something new."



(Shout out: W. Allen, "The Kugelmass Episode," Side Effects (1982).)

Re: Hitchens has a more fundamental disagreement with Blumenthal than he does with Amis.

Don't know that that's true, but given the Blumenthal situation one would have expected a somewhat less mild response to a direct attack. To be clear, I'm not alleging that Hitchens is incoherent or bipolar or anything; rather, I'm just saying that Hitchens' review of the Amis book strongly suggests the deliberate exercise of restraint.

Re: If anyone has an Amis book they recommend, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Amis' first novel The Rachel Papers is very good though like most first novels every other word is "I." Money is probably his best mature novel. His memoir of his father, Experience, may be his best book to date. His short non-fiction is also good and has been collected on a couple occasions, most recently in The War Against Cliche.

Anne Appelbaum's piece in Slate on Hitchens' review of Amis' book is must reading. (How many levels of meta-criticism is that?) Appelbaum points out that Hitchens, who may rightly be said to have a gift for savagery, pulls his punch in a big way. Among other things, she points out that to the extent Hitchens was a Trotskyite, it's ridiculous to accuse him of being an apologist for Stalin: after all, Trotsky was Stalin's rival, and was killed at Stalin's order.

That Hitchens would respond so tepidly to a public attack by his best friend is a bit surprising. Hitchens, you may recall, picked a public fight during the Lewinsky ordeal with his friend Sidney Blumenthal, who was a Clinton advisor at the time. (The subject, I believe, was whether Blumenthal had disparaged Lewinsky at a lunch where Hitchens was present. I don't mean to say that Hitchens was wrong, but another person might have reasonably decided not to start a public quarrel on the basis of his differing recollection.)

Comment statistics for alkali on the Electrolite blog

Total: 14 comments. View all these comments on a single page.